Ryanair Bucharest 02/09/2018 Why do you want to check runway end lights?!
 

This is quite interesting. Tail strike is not a big deal but why do you want to inspect runway end lights??? Was this rotation on the piano keys with one second left to the major disaster?

Regardless of whether there was a tail strike or not (and it appears there wasn't), I rather doubt we will be reading about it anywhere.

That rwy has been reduced lenght forever... I am quite surprised, to be honest, as the DUB flight is done by the guys based locally, in OTP, as far as i remember.

It appears that the captain takes over the radio at some points and he definitely has an Irish accent. It may be like lots of the other eastern europe flights to DUB that switch depending on the season, VNO for example switches between DUB and VNO based crews depending on flight timings and season.

They both sound Irish.

You are right, just checked. Flight's origin was DUB.

Curious. Normally this scenario would be prompted by a suspicion of a tail strike and followed up with a pressurisation check. If there was no pressurisation problem, and ATC confirmed there was no sign of any ground impact, I wonder what prompted the level off and decision to return. I know that "when there's doubt there is no doubt", but there must be more to this. I was surprised by the initial call to burn off 6000kgs = 2.5 hours, but later it seems that was 600kgs.
Regarding performance and getting close to the end: shades of the Canadian A320 in Ireland?? They did not increase thrust as the far end was coming up fast. I wonder what happened here.
If there was no damage to a/c or ground was there even an 'incident'? If not we never learn anymore, except from an insider. No incident, no IAA.

Maybe they used the QRH which told them not to pressurize the aircraft and land at the nearest suitable airport?

Indeed. Correct. I wonder why Boeing didn't include a light sensed from the tail cartridge to show a compression, or is that an option. It is left to 'suspected' tail strike; and when there's doubt there is no doubt. Of course the pressurisation could indicate normal, but under TEM, climbing to crz and high diff would not be good. (I was thinking of another checklist and became senilely confused)

Why would you say a tail strike is "not a big deal"?

Similar take-off to this one?

I wonder if there was any tailstrike/lights that were hit or it just looked very close but the clearance was more than it appeared to be.

We usually do not consider the headwind during takeoff to make things conservative. That way if the wind drops off quite a bit, there is no issue at max derate/ATM. But what about if the wind is already calm as it was here and then a tailwind arises during takeoff. I notice that they took off toward the east but for landing, the westerly runway was the preferred runway. Only three knots but that can be an averaged wind over ten minutes. Maybe it is best to reconsider the reducing of takeoff thrust to the maximum possible extent when the headwind component is minimal.

Any thoughts?

It's clear from the ATC recording and the subsequent utilisation of the aircraft in question that no damage was found to either the ground infrastructure or the aircraft itself.